


Something to Gossip About

by StrivingArtist



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Awkward Steve Rogers, Fluff and Humor, I know, I'm Confused Too, M/M, Meet-Cute, Mistaken Identity, Modern Bucky Barnes, No Winter Soldier, Post battle of new york, Shrunkyclunks, Tony is a menace, and we love him very much, not my normal trauma and suffering, very minor sexual harassment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-10
Updated: 2019-04-10
Packaged: 2020-01-10 21:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18416492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrivingArtist/pseuds/StrivingArtist
Summary: No opening night is complete without something dramatic happening. The team has to have something to gossip about during the next project, after all.After the install from hell, Bucky was content to let someone else be the focus of the gossip.Instead, he went to save a damsel in distress. If the definition of damsel was expanded to include hunky blonds.





	Something to Gossip About

**Author's Note:**

> I don't even know guys. I wrote this thing on flow. all of it. No pausing. No thinking. Just fell out of my head. Thanks to Meph (ond overnights) for the insta-beta

Opening night of a project wasn’t complete without something gossip worthy for the office to talk about during the next project. If nothing seemed to be happening, Richard or Apurv would incite some drama to make up for the lack. That was never a good thing. It was like everyone wanted to be cool now that the Avengers were a thing and New York was recovering.

Fortunately for everyone involved, it seemed like someone was getting there first. 

Fine, maybe it wasn’t nice that they were all rooting for something to get a little crazy during the party for grand open, but the project had been hell. Three accelerations that his company managed to absorb without a cost increase to their client, two major redesigns when the CFO decided to randomly have an opinion on the storage area, a crashed truck carrying the LED monitors, and a structural ceiling fault that nearly ended the project six weeks before opening, were enough that the whole team had a bad taste in their mouth. 

Somehow though, they’d pulled it off, and based on the crying the film had induced and the way the Art director was giddily explaining the more subtle layers of theming to a crowd, it was going to be a success. Bucky was just glad the sync hadn’t gone crazy again. 

Despite three weeks in field making adjustments and corrections every few days, the third of the five projectors just kept dropping sync. They’d probably get a dozen incident reports on it in the next two months, and Bucky should probably resign himself to a lot of red eye flights back to New York, but at least it hadn’t crapped out while the VIPs were in the room. 

Small victories. 

For one night at least, the Ellis Island theater and VIP lounge -- and no, he didn’t understand the business model for that decision -- was functioning. 

Plus, nothing had torn out of the roof and killed anyone. Considering where they had been a month ago, this was both surprising, and great news. 

Which just left the need for some kind of gossip-worthy drama. 

If Bucky was any judge, it was going to be provided by pushy, possibly intoxicated New York socialite who was currently harassing a man that was obviously too uncomfortable to tell her to stop bothering him. 

That was sad for the man. She seemed really unpleasant despite being pretty in the plasticine way wealth often was. The way she kept edging closer into the man’s space was bad enough, but Bucky could see the faux laugh she kept using to push her cleavage forward. It wasn’t a good look. Neither was the cleavage. Bucky wasn't an expert on the subject, but they seemed a bit too firm to be natural.

Phone in hand, Bucky had Rex’s number up, ready to text for backup from the facility security team, waiting for her to do something that justified it. He had no intention of getting involved. It had been a long, long install, and all he wanted was to survive the night and enjoy his long weekend before the next project ramped up to warp speed on him. Some kind of corporate brand home to try to win over millennials on how cool and totally not capitalis ice cream was. Whatever. They paid. 

He wasn’t going to get involved. 

Then the woman escalated to touching. 

The man she was now molesting was huge, blonde, built like a mack truck, and painfully uncomfortable with how she had penned him in between a cocktail table and one of the columns. 

Rational, responsible Bucky, who was a god damn Technical Director, and did what his project managers told him to, would have called Rex and that would have been that. 

But install had been really,  _ really _ long. 

He was wearing a fairly simple suit, and once he left his drink behind, he could look like he was on staff by sloughing off his laid back smile.  

“Pardon me, Ma’am,” He interrupted, stepping between them but keeping his focus on the guy, “Sir, you have a phone call holding in the Facility Manager’s office. If you would come with me please?”

They guy’s eyes went wide -- and ok lady, Bucky got it, he was some kind of supermodel of a man, but that didn’t excuse the unwanted touching -- then narrowed, confused and mistrustful. 

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ll just come along with, I wouldn’t want you to get away from me.” She announced with another fake laugh. 

“I’m so sorry, Ma’am, due to the location of the manager’s office, I’m unable to bring you with us. I do hope you continue to enjoy the party, though.” Bucky had honed the fine art of manners listening to his mother’s sewing circle. Polite didn’t have to mean accommodating. As her face twisted, outraged at being told no, he turned back to the guy, whose expression was, if possible, even more standoffish. Then the woman tried to snake an arm past Bucky to paw at the guy’s chest again. 

It was a relief for Bucky to get a confirmation of his read on the situation when the guy's shuddered slightly. 

“Sorry, uh, Emma, but I wouldn’t want to ask for special treatment.” There was something distantly familiar about his voice. He probably was some actor and Bucky had heard him in the background while working. Or a musician? Something in entertainment. Which would also explain why he was at opening. 

“Thank you, if you’ll follow me sir?”

The woman’s -- Emma’s -- jaw dropped unflatteringly as the guy pushed the table to the side to sneak past without any more physical contact. Bucky put on his best client facing bullshit smile, and gestured for the man to come with him. Out the double doors, across the pergola in view of the lounge, and into the back hallways, Bucky maintained the role. Once they were out of sight, and the door clicked shut, he turned and exhaled. 

“Sorry, so, there isn’t any phone call and the facility manager’s office isn’t some magic secured location, it’s just an office. Also, I don’t work for the facility. So, sorry I lied about that. And sorry again if I completely misread what was going on, maybe that’s your thing, I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure I got this right: You looked like you needed an exit.” 

The guy didn’t release his frown. 

“Ok, so, maybe I did get it wrong. But you looked like you were trying to crawl through the wall, or figure out if you could kill yourself with one of the tiny appetizer forks, and honestly if you bled all over the carpet, my AD was going to finish the job and murder you for real. It took her four overnights to get the carpet right, and then the paint team dropped a bucket and -- yeah, it was a mess. That isn’t the point. Look, if I got it wrong, my bad, and I really am sorry, feel free to go right back, and apologize for the interruption in your conversation. Tell her I grabbed the wrong guy.”

“No. I’m… grateful, but, you thought I needed help?”

It was Bucky’s turn to frown. 

“Yeah? I mean, you had retreated into a corner, which was not a great tactical choice by the way, work on that, and she kept groping you. I’ve seen that look before.  I’ll be honest, normally it’s some kid at a club and she can’t get away from a group of old creeps, but just because you’re six feet of all-american beef doesn’t mean you can’t be molested and assaulted. Me Too’s not just for women remember?”

The guy blinked once, twice, and a slow smile pulled across his face. 

Damn that woman had no clue what she was about. This guy got cuter when he smiled, if cuter meant exponentially hotter. 

And Bucky couldn’t do anything about it. 

You couldn’t save a guy from molestation and then immediately hit on him.  

Never mind the fact that Bucky had zero evidence the guy was anything but straight. 

“Thank you,” The guy said, holding out his hand to shake.

“Not a problem. Just doing my part to save the damsels of the world from distress. Anyway, I can call Rex, that’s security, do you want her removed, or do you want to leave, or do you want to try this again and try to avoid her?”

“I was enjoying myself.”

“I can have Rex --”

“I don’t want to make a fuss.”

“It’s not that big a deal. There’s a whole procedure for this. I trained the security guys on it last week.”

“I thought you said you didn’t work here?”

Bucky grinned. “I don’t. I work for the design firm that produced the new theater and the renovation. I’m the Technical Director, and since I spent a while at Disney I do most of the Ops team training. Including all of the 'In Case Of' scenarios. This is a code 616; Unruly Guest. Seriously, I can call Rex, it’s not a big deal.”

“Can we just wait a minute? Maybe she’ll get distracted and forget about me.” Fat chance of that, but Bucky let it slide. “So you said you worked on this, does that mean you made that film?”

“My media team did. I just take what they gave us and dial it up to eleven.” When the guy looked more lost, Bucky continued, “Ok, so, the Creative Director pitched the idea of the film and the space way back in concept last year. Then the Art Direct and the Design team figured out how to make that possible in the space, what it was going to look like in both modes, all that. That’s where we got all of those sail looking things that were overhead. Then I help figure out how we’re going to hide all the lights and equipment and projectors. Once we finally got the thing functional, and trust me, that was a heck of a thing to pull off, I do programming.”

“Programming.”

“Yeah, like…” Bucky scrambled for something easily described, “like when all of the sails were fading to translucent and you could see the lineages of people? All the way back to the ancestor that decided to pack up and come here? That was a pipe dream until we got the programming right.”

“So those _were_ on different planes! How does that work?”

Bucky knew he had a very cool job, and he loved talking about it, especially to handsome men that seemed genuinely interested in it. “You sure you want me to spoil the magic?”

When the guy nodded, Bucky started, and fifteen minutes later, his throat was dry from explaining it all. The projector placement. The mirror reflectors. The bump to the lights to hide the transition from one face to the next that actually worked better than the original plan. 

“Ah… yeah. So that’s what I do. Programming. Anyway, I should probably get you back over there. This hallway isn’t actually guest facing and you shouldn’t be back here.”

“Right. Uh, I’m Steve, by the way.”

“Bu--Ja--Bucky. I’m Bucky.”

Oh no, the shit-eating-grin was even better than the polite smile, “Did you just forget your own name?”

“No.”

“Sure sounded like you did.”

There was something very familiar about him. It was starting to be annoying, but Bucky was certain he’d seen Steve before. And not just in his fantasies.

But, again, it wasn’t ok to rescue someone from sexual harassment and then make a pass at them. So Bucky had to deal with it, and get out of any situation where he’d be tempted to flirt for real.

“I go by James at work, but Bucky the rest of the time, happy? Now come on, we’ll go around the other side to get back.”

They were almost there, pausing at the EER to let Steve see the control racks that Bucky had just explained when he heard Emma’s strident voice down the hallway. 

It wasn’t a rational choice, ok?  Bucky knew that. 

It wasn’t really even a plan. 

All the same, he shoved Steve into the EER, shut the door, hit the panel that locked it, and slipped on his bored ‘I work here’ expression. It was just in time. 

“There you are. Where did you run off with him, and how long does a phone call take, and why isn’t he with you? We were having a conversation.”

Right lady. That’s what everyone called casual molestation. 

“I’m sorry ma’am, but policy prevents me answering your questions.”

“Jacob! Get over here,” She shouted over her shoulder, “Look, you little rent-a-waiter, you don’t even know who that is, and I know you don’t know who I am, so I’m just going to give you a second to change your mind and tell me where you hid him.”

Even if Steve hadn’t confirmed that he’d wanted an exit, how could she think that acting like this was going to get her what she wanted? 

“Ma’am, again, I’m sorry that I am unable to give you that information, but if you return to the lounge, I’m sure you’ll have another opportunity to speak with him after his phone call is concluded.”

“Just tell me where he is!”

“As I said ma’am, policy precludes me from doing that.”

Jacob joined them, taller than Bucky, and probably fifty pounds heavier; he had to be a bodyguard. “Jacob, make this waiter to tell me where my boyfriend is.”

“You heard the lady. You need to let her know where her boyfriend is.”

“Congratulations, I’m sure he’s an excellent boyfriend. Unfortunately, since he did not mention this to me, I’m still unable to tell you where he is. This policy is for everyone’s protection, but is particularly enforced on nights with VIPs in the building.”

“He’s my damn boyfriend!”

If that was true, Bucky was going to eat the projection sails. 

“Pretty sure the lady’s boyfriend is gonna be pretty upset you didn’t get her to him.”

Bucky let his smile get sweeter. “I’ll be sure to apologize to him for any inconvenience, unfortunately, policy does --”

“You don’t even know who I am, you think you’re gonna have a job tomorrow after I report this?”

“Ma’am, I’m unable to tell you where he is -- but!” he cut off her next interruption, “if you were to call and ask him where he is, I’d be happy to escort you there.”

“He’s in the facility manager’s office.” She announced, smug. 

“Yes ma’am, I’m flattered you were listening earlier, but I will need you to call him first.” Smug turned into a sneer. “I know for a fact the gentleman has his cell phone on him right now.” She was half an inch shy of snarling at him. “And I presume, as his girlfriend, you would have his number.”

“My phone’s dead.”

“Would ya like to use my charger?” Just a hint of his childhood accent came through as he taunted her, and Bucky would have sworn he heard a muffled laugh from the EER behind him.

Bucky saw the moment she decided on a different tack. Her annoyance turned saccharine, and she tilted her hips and bit her lip in a way that had to be rehearsed. 

“Look, I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot, and I’m so sorry if I was rude, but look, Steve and I, we just got together, you know? This was our first date, and we were set up by friends, so I don’t even have his number yet. We came to see this silly thing about immigration that they put on. And I just know that if he and I can spend some time in a place that’s not so ugly, it could be something special. I just, I really really like him, I mean, I think he could be the one? You don’t want to ruin my chance at happiness do you?”

She was all open gestures and earnest tone. 

She was a damn caricature.

“He does seem pretty great,” Bucky allowed. 

“So you’ll help me?” God, she was actually batting her eyelashes. It wasn’t the fifties, and she was a little too mercenary to play at being an ingenue.  

So he stalled, brushing back the hair that had escaped the french braid he wore it in, letting her think he was caving. 

“Well, that’s a real sweet story ma’am, and I guess there’s one thing I can tell you.” He smiled, “Policy precludes me from--”

He hadn’t expected her to hit him with her champagne glass. He also hadn’t expected them to be actual glass, or to find himself bleeding from the cheek. Fortunately, that shock was enough that he was paying attention when her bodyguard got involved. 

Bucky wasn’t some super secret assassin, but he wasn’t useless in a fight. Plus, the bodyguard was pretty easy to trip. Once the guy cracked his head on the chair rail and knocked himself unconscious, the only issue was Emma and her broken champagne flute. Steve was rattling the doorknob, and there was a brief moment where Bucky remembered that he’d never fixed the panel’s override code to let the door open from the inside. 

The awkward burly guy he was defending wasn’t his focus for long. 

Emma snatched a pistol from inside Jacob’s coat, and the only clear thought in Bucky’s head was that the tile in the hallways was much easier to clean than the carpet in the lounge. 

Again, it was the install from hell, and if Kate had to do the carpet a third time, she would probably flay everyone in a five block radius, so Bucky’s preoccupation was explicable, if not logical. 

“Ok, no need for that. Also, don’t know how he got that past the detectors, but great. This is a lot of fun tonight. Great opening night. And I’m very sorry I didn’t hear your perfectly reasonable request to see your boyfriend earlier. Obviously we can make an exception since it’s real love, but I think he might get a bit panicked if you show up with a gun.” 

“Really?” She smiled, thrilled to be getting her way. “Thank you!” 

Her voice went high, the gun dropped low, Bucky lunged, and the door exploded. 

Later, Bucky would find out that the door had been kicked off its hinges, but in the moment, as the steel frame tore apart, it damn well seemed like an explosion. 

But that wasn’t his priority at the time. 

The crazy lady with a gun needed to be dealt with first. 

He had it under control. She was very much tackled. He was quasi-successfully pulling the gun away from her, and he’d pinned one leg and her other arm with his body so he was only getting lightly kicked as she tried to bite him. Given another two or three minutes, it would have been fine. 

Steve, apparently, had a different opinion. 

He was also, apparently, exactly as strong as his muscles made him look. 

He pulled the gun from their combined grasp, unloaded the cartridge and gripped it hard enough, Bucky thought for a second it bent. 

But obviously, that wasn’t possible. 

Things went fast after that. 

The door-splosion had gotten Rex’s attention, which meant security arrived and was apoplectic about the gun. The bodyguard guy was groaning as his brand new concussion made him regret his choices. Most of the design team was in the hallway gaping, but only Kate had bothered to step forward, bringing something to stop the bleeding on Bucky’s face. Steve was talking to Rex about whether it was necessary to get the police involved. 

And Bucky? He was staring at the door to the EER, watching his long weekend off fade away. He could see the electromag lock pieces that he had misprogrammed. It hadn’t been a priority to fix it before because the design and ops teams all had the code to open it from the interior panel. Steve hadn’t had that. 

So Steve exploded the door. 

“James? You doing ok?” Kate asked, pulling an alcohol swab from her Mary Poppins purse. “Apurv already checked the structure. We just have to remount the frame and door, and then redo the access panels. Not a big deal. Totally fixable.”

Bucky nodded, mostly to himself, and let the team handle things around him. They poked at him until he moved to one of the couches in the now empty lounge, and from there, he moped. This was what he got for trying to do a nice thing. Butterfly bandages and a broken door. He just wanted to stop a bit of sexual harassment for the guy that was too awkward to ask the woman to cut it out.  

Good intentions only went so far. Whoever Steve was, he obviously hadn’t needed Bucky’s help. 

The police had arrived, and Bucky was on the phone with the general contractor about getting someone out in the morning to rip out the damaged door frame when a wave of stunned silence travelled through the building. 

He _literally_ heard it coming, which was surreal in about a dozen ways, but didn't make sense until Tony Stark sauntered in from the outside entrance with an Iron Man suit following behind him. He paused long enough to say something about sentry mode, then continued on without the suit. 

Bucky’s coworkers promptly abandoned him.

Made sense. 

There was an Iron Man suit, and even though the team was LA based, it wasn’t like they’d seen one in person. Meanwhile, Bucky was putting puzzle pieces together, and holding gauze on his still sluggishly bleeding face. 

Because Steve kicked a door into oblivion, and was awkward and strong, and seemed sorta familiar, and didn’t understand why Bucky had offered him help, and had smiled when Bucky insulted his tactics, and when something went wrong, Tony Stark showed up. 

Oh god. 

Bucky called Captain America a damsel in distress. 

He tried to rescue Captain America. 

He shoved Captain America in a tech closet. 

Oh. God. 

From the hallway, Bucky heard Stark crack up laughing. Probably over him. That was reasonable. He would have done the same. It was ridiculous. 

Naturally, it was while Bucky was slack-jawed at the revelation that the two Avengers returned. 

“You!” Stark shouted, heading towards him, “You have a very bad name. Do you have a better name, or did your parents look at you when you were born, decide they hate you and legally tie you to the name Bucky?”

“He’s James Barnes, Mr Stark!” Kate shouted from the other side of the room. 

“Thank you, random citizen!”

“Kate!”

“Thank you, _Kate_! Now, James, the police are going to need a statement from you. Formality. Capsy-doodle had his earpiece in like a good little soldier so we have audio and the building has video, so yours is just because they like thinking they have something to do. But I heard what the big guy said, and I needed to check something.”

“Tony.” Captain America was the king of the disapproving Dad voice.

“La-la-la, can’t hear you, Cap. Now James. Jamiekins. Why’d you think this guy needed saving from Alex Forrest out there? Not that she got as far as an affair so it wasn't really Fatal Attraction territory, but that’s not the point. The guy’s not exactly some waif. He kicked through that door. Why did you even get involved?”

Behind Iron Man, Steve was back to looking like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole. 

“Well, she was harassing him, Mr Stark.” Bucky kept his voice falsely light. 

“He’s Captain America.”

“I didn’t know that at the time.”

“So you just….?”

“Helped a guy that looked like he needed it.”

Stark held eye contact for far too long, then nodded. “Go talk to the police, kid.” 

Since the other option was continuing the weirdness, Bucky did. 

Definitely a formality, but not short. They were thorough, and got distracted by his explanation of what an EER was, including why it needed a security panel and maglocks. It gave Emma one more chance to try to attack him, although the cuffs stopped her from leaving the bench. It also let him learn that she’d met Captain America that evening, flirted, and taken it as a timeless love affair when the man was polite in response instead of insulting to her. The cops took down his contact info, led her away, and Bucky looked at his phone to find that the rest of the team had retreated to their favorite bar, where Stark had prepaid their tab because Kate was impulsive and persuasive. 

He laughed, shaking his head at what was absolutely going to be the best opening night gossip the company had ever heard, waved good night to the security team, and headed for the parking lot.

Which was where he found Captain America. 

Leaning against a rental Kia. 

“Uh, Hi?”

“Hi.”

“Are you waiting on your Uber?”

“Tony stole my bike.”

“Why?”

“So I couldn’t run away.”

“From Emma? The cops have her. Wait. You can’t fight her. You’re Captain America. You’d break her.” Bucky trailed off as he noticed the pink on the Captain’s cheeks. 

“Not, uh, from her.”

“Why…” Bucky tried to lean casually next to the gorgeous nonagenarian superhero, “why were you at the opening tonight?” Sue him, he was curious. 

“The whole exhibit is about immigrants. It raises funds for migrant families, and I heard that the film was going to talk a lot about the Irish. My ma was an immigrant.”

“That’s…”

“I had Tony donate enough to get me a ticket for tonight. Wanted to sneak in and see it without anyone making a fuss. Didn’t quite go to plan.” The self-deprecating smirk was almost as good as the shit-eating-grin. “You really didn’t know who I was?”

“Nope. But I’m not great at that sort of thing. I got into a fight with a senator in a coffee shop because they spilled the half and half and didn’t clean it up. Didn’t know until their staff showed up.”

“Anyway,” he said, fondness and laughter in his voice, “I wanted to say thanks. I didn’t, I mean, I didn’t actually _need_ the help but, I still --”

“You were half a step from faking an alien invasion to get out of there, Captain. I didn’t recognize it at first, but now I know who you are, that’s definitely what you were about to do. You did need the help.”

"I had her on the ropes."

"You were hiding with a table."

“Worked out.”

Well that was vague. 

“I should go. My team is at some bar, and I guess Kate talked Stark into paying our tab tonight. The girl’s got balls, or she’s run out of fucks to give. No clue which. Doesn’t matter. Free drinks. I think I deserve that after tonight. And this instal. But mostly tonight.”

“Thanks Bucky,” the Captain held out his hand to shake. 

Bucky took it, trying not to panic about how his hands were abruptly sweaty. 

“You’re welcome, Captain.”

“Steve.”

“Steve.”

And then they stood there. Next to a Kia. In a parking lot. Shaking hands long enough it was strained. 

“Free Drinks.” Bucky half shouted, stealing his hand back, grabbing for his keys. 

“How about a date instead?” Steve had his own weirdly shouty voice.

"Huh?"

"A date."

“With?”

“Me?”

“Oh.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, I should have -- that wasn’t -- Tony stole my bike and said he wouldn’t let me have it back if I didn’t ask, but now I did, so you should go and find the rest of your--”

"Steve, I said yes to the date.”

Bucky had almost gotten used to the way Captain America’s various smiles made his knees weak. He wasn’t prepared for the way genuine delight would knock the air from his lungs. It was stunning. 

Five hours of all-night diner food and traded stories later, when Bucky dropped Steve off in Manhattan, he was left entirely breathless by a single good night kiss, and the newest contact in his phone. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
